Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration project
As the Second World War was drawing to a close in 1944, two great works of political economy were published. One of them was Friedrich August von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom,1 inspiring the defenders of free market movements ever since and up to the present. The other was Karl Polanyi’s The Great Tr...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press
2022-12-01
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| Series: | European Law Open |
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| Online Access: | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2752613522000558/type/journal_article |
| _version_ | 1797846692528128000 |
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| author | Christian Joerges |
| author_facet | Christian Joerges |
| author_sort | Christian Joerges |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | As the Second World War was drawing to a close in 1944, two great works of political economy were published. One of them was Friedrich August von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom,1 inspiring the defenders of free market movements ever since and up to the present. The other was Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation.2 This essay will focus on Polanyi but also pay tribute to Hayek. Contrasting the two helps to understand both of them better. Of the two, Hayek, the Nobel prize winner, is of course more widely known and by far more influential. But Polanyi’s work, too, has achieved and has been attracting as of recently such attention that one of the Directors of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne proclaimed that ‘we are all Polanyian now’,3 not only in economic sociology, but also in related disciplines, including, of course, political economy and political theory. A plethora of aspects of The Great Transformation are very widely discussed. This essay will be concerned with the not-so-well explored importance of Polanyi’s work for European Law and legal scholarship in general, including his theorems on the ‘embedded economy’, his conceptualisation of labour as a ‘fictitious commodity’ as well as the notion of counter-movements. It will then juxtapose Polanyi’s expectation of a new international order with the development of the European integration project and sketch out the contours of the democracy-enhancing conflicts law and its affinities with Polanyian core normative principles. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:59:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-74e85a005eb1443785e5391de117b429 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2752-6135 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:59:05Z |
| publishDate | 2022-12-01 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | European Law Open |
| spelling | doaj.art-74e85a005eb1443785e5391de117b4292023-04-14T09:41:53ZengCambridge University PressEuropean Law Open2752-61352022-12-0111067107910.1017/elo.2022.55Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration projectChristian Joerges0Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany Centre for European Law and Policy, Bremen University, Bremen, GermanyAs the Second World War was drawing to a close in 1944, two great works of political economy were published. One of them was Friedrich August von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom,1 inspiring the defenders of free market movements ever since and up to the present. The other was Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation.2 This essay will focus on Polanyi but also pay tribute to Hayek. Contrasting the two helps to understand both of them better. Of the two, Hayek, the Nobel prize winner, is of course more widely known and by far more influential. But Polanyi’s work, too, has achieved and has been attracting as of recently such attention that one of the Directors of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne proclaimed that ‘we are all Polanyian now’,3 not only in economic sociology, but also in related disciplines, including, of course, political economy and political theory. A plethora of aspects of The Great Transformation are very widely discussed. This essay will be concerned with the not-so-well explored importance of Polanyi’s work for European Law and legal scholarship in general, including his theorems on the ‘embedded economy’, his conceptualisation of labour as a ‘fictitious commodity’ as well as the notion of counter-movements. It will then juxtapose Polanyi’s expectation of a new international order with the development of the European integration project and sketch out the contours of the democracy-enhancing conflicts law and its affinities with Polanyian core normative principles.https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2752613522000558/type/journal_articleembeddednessmarket utopiafictitious commoditiescounter-movementspost-war regionalismdemocracy-enhancing conflicts law |
| spellingShingle | Christian Joerges Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration project European Law Open embeddedness market utopia fictitious commodities counter-movements post-war regionalism democracy-enhancing conflicts law |
| title | Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration project |
| title_full | Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration project |
| title_fullStr | Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration project |
| title_full_unstemmed | Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration project |
| title_short | Why European legal scholarship should become aware of Karl Polanyi: The Great Transformation and the integration project |
| title_sort | why european legal scholarship should become aware of karl polanyi the great transformation and the integration project |
| topic | embeddedness market utopia fictitious commodities counter-movements post-war regionalism democracy-enhancing conflicts law |
| url | https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2752613522000558/type/journal_article |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT christianjoerges whyeuropeanlegalscholarshipshouldbecomeawareofkarlpolanyithegreattransformationandtheintegrationproject |